(The Center Square) – Add Wisconsin’s Libertarian Party to the list of those asking lawmakers to return the state’s $4 billion budget surplus to taxpayers.
“The Libertarian Party of Wisconsin would like to politely ask the Wisconsin Legislature to kindly refund the excess money they took from Wisconsin taxpayers,” the Libertarian Party said in its message to lawmakers.
Wisconsin is looking at a projected $4 billion surplus by the end of the current state budget cycle, plus a $2 billion rainy day fund.
Republican lawmakers at the Wisconsin Capitol have said for years that they want to return the surplus to taxpayers.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said earlier this month that returning the surplus is his top priority in the next legislative session.
“We have a record-surplus and…at least for Assembly Republicans, we are not in a rush to spend that. We are in a rush to return it back to the people of Wisconsin. The best way that we can help folks deal with inflation is by putting the money that they overpaid back in their wallets, so that they can choose to spend it on things that are important to their family. So that’s going to be something that we work on right away next spring,” Vos told reporters.
Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Tony Evers have said they would rather spend the money on education.
Senate Democratic Leader Diane Hesselbein said she’d like to spend the surplus on schools and special education.
“I would like to put a large portion of that money to the school districts so that they can decide what they need,” Hesselbein said.
The Libertarian Party said lawmakers need to stop “robbing the taxpayers.”
“Instead of doing the ethical thing, it appears that the Evers Administration will be quite content to shovel that surplus into the gaping, insatiable maw that is the state bureaucracy,” the Libertarians said. “The state budget is, essentially, a contract between the taxpayers and the legislature. They propose a set of services to be rendered for a fee, paid by taxes. When the taxpayers exceed their end of the contract, it must, if we want to foster trust and honesty, be returned to the people. It most definitely must not be stolen to give bureaucratic agencies their grandest desires in the next budget, as it appears that the governor would want to do.”